Treedmend

I got my hair cut on Tuesday at the Korean salon near my mother's house. The way my mother found this salon was by asking a cashier from one of the local shops where she gets her hair cut. So far, both my sisters, my mother and my grandmother has been sent to this shop because this is what my mother does. She decides you need a haircut and makes you CAH-RAZY until you agree to go to her salon. It goes like this:

"You need a haircut."

"I'll get around to it."

"No you won't. You will continue to look unkempt with all your hair flopping all over the place for months and months."

"Like I said. I'll GET AROUND TO IT."

Then, every time she sees me, she'll make this clicking noise with her teeth, which sums up all the disapproval for every life choice I've ever made, culminating in the fact that I HAVEN'T GOTTEN MY HAIR CUT.

So fine.

I went.

I was strapped into a chair and these thoughts rushed through my mind, like--I DO NOT want to look like an old Korean lady. What in the world am I DOING HERE? My hair is my shining glory--am I really going to let this happen? It didn't help matters that, as I sat there, my wet hair dripping water onto the towel draped over my shoulders, my mother leans forward and says, "Well, anyway, if you don't like it, it'll grow back."

Not words of comfort.

Then, the girl behind the counter said:

"While you're here, you should get a Brazilian Treedmend."

My hands instinctively covered my crotch and I said, "No thank you."

But she didn't let it go.

"You need it to straighten you hair."

It dawns on me that this Brazilian thing doesn't have anything to do with my girl parts.

"Oh, what is it again?"

"Brazilian Treedmend."

"Treatment?"

"Yah, treedmend. To straighten your hair."

"My hair's pretty straight."

She takes a dismissive look at my hair as if it had caterpillars crawling all over it and said, "No. Your hair? It's frizzy."

Let me tell you, my hair is NOT frizzy. It's so shiny I use it as a nightlight in my bedroom. But I suppose this is how the beauty industry chugs along, one treedmend at a time.

My sister got such a kick out of the way the girl said treedmend that she walked over and said, "What was that again? The Brazilian what?"

PENIS!

This evening, when I took my dogs out for a walk, I noticed that some kids had drawn a bunch of dog bones on the snow that had accumulated on car windshields. I passed by my car and saw the letters P-E-N-I-S in huge capital letters and realized that those were not dog bones.

Just really badly drawn penises.

Why would anyone draw balls on both sides of the penises?

Your Wii Controller Smells So Good!

I am afraid of germs. That is why I carry a bottle of Purell and wet wipes with me everywhere I go. I try not to touch door handles in public. When I wash my hands in a public toilet, I do not use the hot air dryer, but a paper towel. Then I use that paper towel to open the bathroom door.

This is something Peter used to make fun of, but he is now one of the converted. Because he has seen people go to the bathroom and walk out the door, TOUCHING the door handle.

The other day I brought the kid I babysit over my apartment because my sister made the good point that since I have 2 dogs, a cat, and a Wii, this makes my apartment the child's fantasy dreamland.

"You mean, I live in a dreamland?" I said.

"Uh...Yeah..." she said.

So after the kid went home, I Purelled all the Wii controllers. Why? Because I don't see children as small people--I see them as creatures teeming with bacteria.

So when my sister came over last night, we're playing Wii and she brings the Wii controller close to her face and said, "Wow! These newer type controllers smell SO GOOD!"

I Quit!

Today I quit my babysitting job. I felt kind of bad about it, because no one wants to go through the trouble of hiring someone, especially someone as AWESOME as I am, and then hear that she wants to leave. I had wanted to do this in person, but the mom is always working late and I haven't seen her in weeks. So today when she called the house, I had to buckle down and tell her over the phone.

Her reaction was what I expected. She was REALLY ANNOYED.

I told her that I had been offered a full-time job. Okay. That's not true, but I didn't have the guts to come out and say, "You're boyfriend really creeps me out and I don't like his energy or his naked afternoon parades."

I told her that I would give her until the second week in January because I wanted to give her four weeks notice. Between you and me, internet, this is something I didn't want to do, but I thought that the extra few weeks would be appreciated. In an exasperated tone, she said that it really wasn't enough time since she couldn't start to look until after the holidays. I did see her point and I felt really bad about it. I felt bad about it for about an hour until I realized something: This wasn't the job I had signed up for!

The job I signed up for was taking care of her son, which was pretty easy work. He's a nice kid who doesn't trouble me at all. I like the mom and the dad, who both seem like nice people.

However, I did NOT sign up for the boyfriend. And since he's home ALL THE TIME, I don't see why she can't just get him to pick the kid up after school until they find someone better.

If the job had continued to be the same job I had the first month I had started, then I would have been more than happy to keep working there.

Also, whenever she doesn't need me, she only gives me about a day's notice, which had irked me because I do plan my life around having to be around for those hours. I felt that I gave her more of a courtesy than she had shown me. Let this be a tip to all you moms out there.

If you want to keep a babysitter happy (and working with you for a LONG time), you can't be taking away hours all the time. In the future, when I hire a babysitter, I will definitely pay her a set amount each week whether I use her or not. I don't think it's worth the extra $30 you save here and there because that babysitter, if she's a good one, will find a better situation.

The Idealized You by Wii

Last weekend I was really excited to have Peter's friends over because I had made Miis that looked EXACTLY like them. It was astonishing how close I got.

So when we turned it on during halftime of the Steeler's game, the Miis came on the screen and the comments were:

"That doesn't look like me at all!"

"Where's my goatee?"

"Why do I have a smirk on my face?"

"My eyes don't look like that!"

Okay. Hold. The Freak. Up.

The Wii gives you like 8 types of faces and a VERY LIMITED amount of variations. I had created these two masterpieces of Wii Mii. I had become the Leonardo da Vinci of the Mii and here they were COMPLAINING?

I felt like saying:

"This is the idealized you. Notice that you didn't say, 'Where's my drinking problem?' 'Where's my gut?' 'Where's my bald spot?'"

I Guess I'm Quitting

This afternoon, I was sitting in the dining room of the house where I'm babysitting, and the dreaded boyfriend loafs down the stairs and says to me, in a really disparaging way as if I was a five-year-old:

Him: "Did you call -(the kid's mom)- yet?"

Me: "No."

Him: "Uh...WELL...Don't you think you SHOULD?"

The thing is, I've been doing this for the past 3.5 months and I never call the mom. She usually calls the house whenever she wants to talk to me...after all, she KNOWS I'm there. It's no mystery.

Now, I don't know if I'm blowing this whole thing way out of proportion because every time he talks to me, I want to say:

"Uhm...Did you roll over and DIE yet? Uh...WELL...Don't you think you SHOULD?"

Put Yer Shirt On

The boyfriend of the lady whose son I babysit (hmmm... could this be more confusing?) often comes downstairs from taking a shower, which he does at 4:30pm every day -- I mean, 4:30pm? Most people take showers in the morning or at night, but in the early evening? -- wearing only a bathrobe or a towel or jeans and no top.

Am I being prudish, because I find this completely INAPPROPRIATE and when I talked to Peter about it, he said that I cannot say anything if I want to keep this job, which I actually don't want anymore because of this stupid boyfriend.

He says my best bet is to say something to the boyfriend, but I don't want to talk to him at all.

It's not the biggest deal in the world, in the whole scheme of my life, it's such a nothing thing. I think he's mostly doing it for attention and to even mention it will give him what he wants. So I completely ignore him and curse him for being such a douche.

I think when I'm out the door, I'll tell the mom, "Oh, by the way, you MIGHT want to warn the next babysitter about the naked boyfriend parade at 4:30pm."

Snow Already

So last weekend Peter and I were programming our new Wii and there's this feature where we can put in our location and we will have access to weather reports. So Peter puts in our location and we flick on the weather report and it says that it is snowing. In shock, I say, "Oh my gosh! It's snowing!"

Peter looks at me with his crooked Harrison Ford grin and says, "Uh huh...VERY funny!"

"I'm totally serious," I said.

"Right. So if I open the blinds, I will see snow falling."

"Yah, dude."

So he goes over to the window, peeks through the blinds and says, "Holy SHIT!"

Wii are Not Very Fit

Whenever a birthday or anniversary rolls along, there's never anything I really want. Actually, I always want elephant-shaped objects and cute orange-colored things, but Peter always refuses to purchase me anything that would be considered clutter or nonsense -- two types of things I LOVE.

So this year, I asked my sister what I should ask for as my anniverscary present and she said (without skipping a beat), "A Wii Fit!"

So I asked for one and I got one! Although our first Wii was stolen by someone in our building (or UPS) because the folks at Best Buy are GENIUSES and put "Wii Game Console" on the boxes. Duh, people!

Peter saw our old UPS guy at the local pizzeria and told him what happened. The UPS guy was all, "Oh yeah, people who work there steal stuff ALL the time. I wouldn't be surprised if it was stolen before it got to your building."

Nice.

But I totally think that someone in the building stole it. But that's their karma and Santa is SO not going to be happy about this. I'm going to write him a letter and HE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE.

The Wii Fit is SOOO much fun, but I don't really think that we will be able to lose any weight shifting our weight on a block of plastic, but I'll let you know in 6 months. It's really the most fun you can have with a video game and actually makes yoga fun. Although, because my weight is posted on the chart, I can never show my mother this video game because she thought I was fat about twenty pounds ago.

You Have to Go Home Now

Peter and I went on our trip to Cancun, Mexico and we stayed at a great resort. I was really nervous about booking this trip because I didn't want to make the wrong move, so I stayed up night after night reading about 805 reviews of the hotel. I knew I had done a little too much research when Peter ran out of singles and I told him, "Oh, they exchange twenties for singles at the front desk!"

It was the first time we had gone to a resort-type of facility and it was AWEsoooome! We had so much fun that I want to bring my parents next time. But then I thought back to every vacation we've ever had and it always involved Doing Something, Visiting Someone, Going Somewhere.

Every morning Peter and I would wake up and say, "What have we planned for the day? Uhm... Nothing? Sounds great!"

We just sat out there with constantly replenished drinks in our hand.

When we were shown our room, the bellhop pointed all the amenities to us and made a big deal out of telling us that there were two porn channels (since this is an all-adult, mostly honeymooning resort). And during the whole week, we would be blithely channel-surfing when, all of a sudden, GAPING ORIFICES would appear on screen causing us to scream at the television.

I guess that's what most men want to see, alternating HUGE CLOSE-UPS of gaping orifices and those orifices being stuffed by unnaturally huge and alien-like penises. It's more scary than sexy. Actually, scary would be an understatement. Gross would be another understatement. You know it's bad when you're sitting there thinking, "Wait, that doesn't belong there...unless...ew, GROSSGROSSGROSS!"

Of course, I can't watch porn because I always look at the poor girls (who look obviously high on whatever it is that gets them through the ordeal) and think what a sad life they must lead and I hope that they haven't been kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. This kind of thinking is what Peter calls "taking all the fun out of" thinking.

Seven days of pure relaxation made us realize that we wanted to live every day like that. Except for the being drunk seven hours of the day every day part.

At the end of our trip at checkout, the girl asked us if we had a nice time and we said, "Oh YES! We had the BEST TIME!"

She answered with, "But now you have to go home."

And Peter muttered, "Bitch," under his breath.